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When id Software released Quake in 1995, it was former employee Dave Taylor who developed a Linux port in what seemed to be his spare time. The port, released in July 1996, titled xquake had limited appeal and seemed more a proof of concept than a serious attempt at a game port.
After releasing Abuse, Dave Taylor's game development company Crack dot Com licensed the Quake engine for a new project, Golgotha. Shortly after, crackers who had compromised Crack dot Com's server stumbled upon the virgin Quake source and copied it, distributing it among the Quake community underground. Dave Taylor reacted to the news by threatening legal action in Quake community IRC hangouts.
Linux enthusiast Greg Alexander happened upon the Quake source, saw that someone had begun the underpinnings of a more serious Linux Quake port to SVGAlib and decided to complete it himself. In 24 hours, Quake was running on Linux. In spite of Dave Taylor's intent to prosecute, Alexander submitted the patches to John Carmack, lead programmer of id Software.
In the end, no one was sued and Alexander's patch became the foundation of a more substantial Linux port. id Software's recently hired David Zoid Kirsch was appointed as portmaster and within months a serious Quake port was released for Linux.
An official source release including the Linux source was made in December 1999.
Macmillan Digital Publishing then published and for Linux. After that, the now defunct Loki Software published Quake III Arena for Linux simultaneously with the Windows version. All Linux conversions were ported by id Software.
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